2/3/09

Understanding "FAGGOT" and "TRANNY" are Hate Words

Mutual respect begins with self respect or lack of therein is why many transgender people hate and distrust gays people. (ref to the transgender people's comments on Instant Tea)

Understanding that both words FAGGOT and TRANNY are hate inspiring slur is a no brainer for most of the good intentioned, highly intelligent and literate LGBT community. Allies within the LGBT community would not consider using these words in a antagonistic manner or even suggest that one or the others group be accepting of ether of these hate words.

I responded reluctantly, after may years of trying to keep this embarrassing situation "IN HOUSE" by emailing and talking with staff at the Dallas Voice and with local independent movie producer Israel Luna. Finally unable to turn another cheek I responded to this intolerable situation with a planetransgender blog post DEMAND the Dallas Voice stops using "TRANNY" . . In the first paragraph of this post is this article I acknowledged the diversity of our community with....

"....unless we are a entertainer with published articles which we identify ourselves individually as a "Drag Queen or Tranny" please do not call us by these names."

I Fully expected the Editorial Staff of the Dallas Voice and it's "Official Blog Instant Tea" to comprehend the indignities wrought by the context and frequency of their usage of the word "Tranny" Googled on 2/3/09 139,000 (resulted in) for "Dallas voice Tranny" and to implement a policy enabling good will between gay people and transgender people.

The transgender community was flabbergasted when the Dallas Voice Official Blog "Instant Tea" responded by attempting to justify using defamatory language by how many times transgender people have been humiliated, degraded and marginalized in other media sources. They went on to ignore the paragraph above and instead made the conversation two dimensional. Then they enlisted a well known self identified female impersonator as their spokes man. Then HE, a cisgender man in woman clothing who takes these clothes off after a night of paid drag work and dons men's clothing attempted to be a authority on being transgender. RuPaul is a female impersonator. This is his personal space. Finding ones identity is what we are all about.

Rupaul is NOT TRANSGENDER by his own definition. He capitalizes monetarily on his ability to entertain while personifying a very funny comical almost cartoon like caricature of womanhood. This Capitalization is added by commercialization and RuPual is thrilled to be once again the center of controversy.

The Boasting Edge brought it's full editorial might to remind GLAAD that it's previous efforts in maintaining civility resulted in people shouting so many slurs as to obscure the original transgression."Years ago, RuPaul was roped into another controversy because she’s been very supportive of Shirley Q. Liquor, a drag comedian and former Texan, who was condemned by GLAAD for promoting "ugly racial stereotypes." Not that Shirley defamed gays. GLAAD caved to pressure because "Grey’s Anatomy" star Isaiah Washington (a black dude) was being spanked for saying "faggot." In short, GLAAD agreed to a prisoner exchange."

"....unless we are a entertainer with published articles which we identify ourselves individually as a "Drag Queen or Tranny" please do not call us by these names."

Rupaul is comfortable with "owning Tranny". You are a "Tranny" Rupaul. You "own Tranny" by definition.

Transgender people who responded to this outrage clearly define ourselves in our lives as transgender.

So recapping so far. 3 men who wear male clothing and one who wears women's clothing after 6 hours of preparation for paid drag work, use hateful and degrading language in an antagonistic fashion over and over and over on the Dallas Voice's "Official Blog".None are transgender. Some are closely connected to the "Gay and Lesbian" paper the Dallas Voice.

One is a drag queen spokesman who chooses to be identified as a "Tranny" and feels Transgender people should too.

This why I have used restraint for so many years and worked diligently as an ally threw thick and thin, hoping that my influence on gay transphobia would somehow make gay people just a little less hateful.

Tammye Nash Editor of the Dallas Voice stated she in a comment on the Instant Tea Blog post;

"I have my own personal opinion about using the word “tranny” to describe transgender men and women. I don’t like it. I find it, at the very least, a distasteful word."

And yet the Dallas Voice's Official Blog "Instant Tea" continues to defame transgender people. What is your responsibility Tammy as an editor? Do you take credit for your "official blog"? I'm not being sarcastic, just curious. What does a newspaper editor do?

What became of earlier responses of outrage by Tammye Nash and John Wright of the Dallas Voice when I suggested that your usage of the word "Tranny" is responsible for the perception that transgender people are less valuable?

In an earlier conversation Nash communicated to me that she was happy I am an transgender advocate because there had not been any for so long in the DFW. In a latter communication she hoped I would not hate her. That was curious to me. What could Nash do to make me hate her? I do not hate you Tammye.

To respond to Tammye's observation that there was a lack of transgender activists in the DFW. None any that you are aware of Tammye, in that context, and none to be sure lately that have attempted to have an respectful intelligent conversation with gay people about the abusiveness of the Dallas Voice.(Wondering why sarcastically)

But we are doing wonders avoiding you and your staff on any subject homosexual people would use as weapons against us by working with youth, religions, homeless, police, hospitals, city and state government actively making the lives of the entire GLBT community fulfilling and rewarding by enabling good will within a productive society.

A thankless task when your reward from gay people is hate, hate and hate.

Mutual respect begins with self respect, and lack of their in is why many transgender people hate and distrust gay people.

"fag," "faggot," "dyke," "homo," "sodomite," "queen," "she-male," "he-she," "it," "tranny" and similar epithets.The criteria for using these derogatory terms should be the same as those applied to hate words for other groups: they should not be used except in a direct quote that reveals the bias of the person quoted. So that such words are not given credibility in the media, it is preferred that reporters say, "The person used a derogatory word for a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender person."

I can not hate all peoples who loves their own sex. That makes no sense to me.Personally I am a pansexual so gay people and I have a lot in common from the sexual orentation standpoint. Odd Bedfellows to be sure.

Mutual respect begins with self respect, and lack of their-in is why many transgender people hate and distrust gay people.

11 comments:

It is the height of hypocrisy to raise such a fuss over "tranny" (and all the various variations) that are in widespread use in trans communities and have been for literally decades while absolutely refusing to acknowledge that a significant number of women of transsexual history have considered being shoved under the, to us incredibly insulting, term "transgender". We do NOT "trans" our gender, the reason to transsex one's body is precisely because our "gender" is consistent and non-malleable. You cannot pretend to not know this, some such as myself have been opposing this usage since it first started. You bitch about Ru Paul and forced association, we do not like at all those who are not part of the gender binary post transition being associated with us. It is defamation of our womanhood and the fact that a couple of gender queers bullied GLAAD into their personal definitions of terms that are very much in flux today as well as then is not a defense. You defame us by forced association with those with non binary gender identities in that by doing so, you deny our own place in the binary.....you deny our womanhood.

The sometimes downright vicious nature of silencing our objections are evident all over the web. We state our position and are immediately attacked personally for doing so followed by being silenced via banning, forced moderation etc to prevent us from expressing our opinions.

Until the trans community addresses this once and for all it has absolutely no moral high ground complaining about the use of other terms.

Until the trans community addresses this once and for all it has absolutely no moral high ground complaining about the use of other terms.

You're in no position to dictate terms, Cathryn.

Seriously, cut it out with the hierarchy of oppression crap - especially when you're attempting to play it on people who are in exactly the same boat as you.

All you're doing, over and over again, is poisoning the well.

Also, your description of definitions and history is wildly distorted and largely false.

Planetransgender,

Thanks for the heads up on this. It's interesting how asking not to be called a derogatory name is unreasonable and borderline violent, but actually using the derogatory name is completely reasonable. :(

I do not understand why you would consider it hypocritical of the majority of the transgender population to ask for respect..

But then I do not understand why any one would assume the pen name "RadicalBitch". I write your name inside quotations because I want the usage of a term many people would find degrading to be attributed directly to the author of the comments submitted on planetransgender by "radicalbitch".

The first paragraph of the first planetransgender post that on this subject,"Demand Dallas Voice Stops Using Tranny", before female impersonator RuPual was enlisted I wrote,(speaking of the youtube video by transgender woman Nikki Dreams),

"I hope everyone who watches this comes to appreciates how harmful it is to the self respect of transgender people when you call us "Trannie" and unless we are a entertainer with published articles which we identify ourselves individually as a "Drag Queen or Tranny" please do not call us by these names."

Translated to the best of my ability would mean that I embrace the full spectrum of our diversity but the exploitation of this term "tranny" without attributing it to a source was found offensive by many.

I would offer that if RuPual who does not identify as transgender by his own definition and speaks as some kind of authority on the experience of being transgender because he is a self identified female impersonator entertainer is a Transgender impersonator by default. A part of our diversity spectrum but clearly not transgender.

"RadicalBitch" we have a different concept of what inspires mutual respect and what is empowering and enabling for transgender people.

"radicalbitch" I will let your usage of both profanity and gender slurs remain unedited, this one time. When you comment please respect the posted message "Thank you for commenting. Comments containing obscenity will be deleted."I consider the usage of racial, sexual or gender terminology that is defined as defamotory as established in the GLAAD media guide to be obscenity.I did make a point in our dramatically differing concepts of social moray's in highlighting your pen name.No insult was intended and I respectfully attributed words I personally feel some may find offensive or derogatory.I would feel much more comfortable addressing you as RB in the future in order to avoid this incendiary topic.I have not had the time to read your blog much, but from what I have seen to this point it is well written and insightful.Thank you for commenting,kelli

I consider the GLAAD definitions regarding the trans terminology to be defamation, in fact I have a petition online to protest the use of "transgender" as a forced umbrella term in that it defames the womanhood of women of transsexual history.

Who appointed them the judges of terminology that has never been agreed on within the community...ever.

Ummm...Catherine/RadicalBitch -- you just called me a tranny on LA.MetBlogs within the past two weeks.

For someone demanding respect of you and your opinions -- just after calling me a term online that you know I find offensive -- seems to me to be kind of ironic. Plus, it put's you in the position of being a hypocrite as you don't give the same respect to others that you demand for you and your opinions.

And, do you really want me to pull out the emails I have on file where you thoroughly pulled the victim card and "presented it" to my blogmistress Pam about me focusing on your offensive language? Please -- I have a few choice words of yours in my files, and know where your less than respectful language is found online.

If I wrote another piece at Pam's House Blend about how you personally just called me a tranny when you know I personally find the term offensive, I'm absolutely positive you'd pull the "look how Autumn is bullying me again" victimhood card again. It's what you do.

Okay, this is an incendiary topic. Frankly, I don't think anyone can dictate what anyone else should or should not do, like, or agree with. One person prefers "transgender," the other "tranny." The best we can hope to do is espouse our own personal convictions and not offend others purposefully.

My partner (both biologically male) is transitioning, and we are actively trying to remove "tranny" from our vocabulary, as we do not feel it is an appropriate term for our own journey. However, I must also say that I have known many transwomen (many in the entertainment community) who freely use "tranny."

The schools of thought seem to fall under the same as "owning" terms which have previously been used to degrade us. I can see the logic in this, and if that's what someone wants to do, by all means, own it. But there will always be others who see differently. So who is right, and who is wrong?

Engaging in healthy dialogue is one thing, but rabidly proclaiming who is right and who is wrong is another.

I guess at the end of the day, all I can say is if you don't like the term transgender, don't use it, and advise those close to you that you find it offensive, and tell them why. Then hope they can respect it. Same with "faggot", "nigger", "dyke", "homo", "queer", "drag queen", "butch", "femme", etc.

Interesting post, though I do think it began getting a bit off track as an exercise in dialogue and has turned toward a back-and-forth fight between a couple of people.